No matter how much Russian these people speak,
do NOT call them "Russian".
It's time to learn geography...NOW!!!
Aah Belarus, the land where people will tell you "Don't call me Russian" as they say that to you in Russian.
But first, you know the drill, let's dissect the flag.
Flag has two bands, one red taking up two thirds of the height of the flag
and green one in the lower third and a white Rushnyk pattern on the left hoist side.
According to Alexander Lukashenko, president since 1994 around the time that the flag was created
the red represents freedom and sacrifice of the nations's forefathers,
the green represents life and the Rushnyk pattern has more of a cultural connotation
rather than a symbolized one.
Rushnyk patterns are used consistently in Belarusian cloths and woven material,
some Rushnyks have hidden meaning but the one on the flag doesn't really have one.
But you know what is official? The borders of Belarus...aand transition...
Now this is where things get fun because in order to understand Belarus' boundaries,
you kind of have to look close and find the few oddities that stick out.
First of all, Belarus is located in eastern Europe, landlocked between 5 other countries:
Russia, Ukraine and Poland and Lithuania and Latvia.
The country is divided up into 6 regions.
This one is called "Brest", hehe breast.
One special administrative district - Minsk, the capital city
and getting into Belarus is gonna be relatively easy for all the neighbour nations.
There are various roads and trains that travel to Belarus from places like Poland, Russia and Lithuania.
However, border guards have the jurisdiction to pretty much deny entry to anyone they deem as not worthy
and have no problem sending them back.
Typically, if your nationality is not from the Eastern European region,
you may find it a little bit more difficult to enter and this is one of the reasons
why Belarus is one of the least visited countries in all of Europe.
Long story short, if you aren't A) Eastern European, or B) you don't speak any Russian or Belarusian
or C) if you don't have a Russian or Belarusian friend to vouch for you,
then getting in might have a little bit of more complication and it might cost you a lot and visa fees.
However, Belarus loves, you know they're just suspicious of all you guys, that's all.
The borders are strange because even thought there are lots of rivers and lakes,
not many of them to find the borders of Belarus.
I mean, sure, you have the short river borders like the Katra river in Lithuania
and the Dnipro river in the south of Ukraine,
but the most of the borders are just arbitrarily drawn lines situated over land
in which the trees and bushes are hacked to show the territory marks.
Some of these borders get weird, like in the north you have the Adutiškis railway station
split between Lithuania and Belarus, in which for about a mile heading east you'll be in Belarus,
and heading west you'll be in Lithuania.
Also you have an island split between Belarus and Lithuania in lake Riču,
and 2 islands and 2 peninsulas in lake Drūkšiai or Drisviaty.
Look, I'm trying to prove my best to pronounce these Slavic and Baltic words, just bear with me.
And let's not even get started on Lithuania was like:
"Eh, I'm just gonna take this Dieveniškių istorinis national park from you guys,
even if it does give me like a 1 mile wide corridor to reach it.
The weirdest part though, would have to be the small Russian Sankovo Medvyeshe enclave
in the south near the border by Ukraine.
This place used to and technically kind of still does belong to Russia
and under it is an old Russian military base.
However, the entire place including the base and 2 small towns near it are virtually abandoned and empty.
Why do you ask? Because of Chernobyl.
Back in 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear disaster actually affected Belarus more than it did Ukraine
and to this day a huge portion of the south border by Ukraine is left completely abandoned
due to the radioactive fallout that still lingers to this day.
Due to the fact that there are no more operating checkpoints, this spot is notoriously known
as the prominent place in all of Belarus, where the few desperate and incredibly stupid people go
to smuggle in things across the border.
You know, at the risk of radiation poisoning.
"Hey man, I got that thing you wanted."
It's actually kind of sad because on advantage point , thre are is really beautiful with lush forests and green pastures used for far...
oh wait, before I talk about that, we have to show the transtition.
There we go, perfect, like I was saying..
Belarus' southland is actually very green and lush, a huge portion of this land
prior to Chernobyl was used for farming and agriculture.
However, today it's sadly kind of neglected by force.
Belarus: "Thanks a lot Ukraine, we could use that land for like food and stuff."
About 70% of the radiation from Chernobyl went to Belarus
and a fifth of Belarus' land was affected by the fallout, this is partially the reason
why Belarus is a lot more urbanized today, than it was prior to the 80's
since many of the people were displaced and evacuated from the region to avoid the danger.
Today, however, with the help of the UN and other agencies, they are trying to combat the fallout
problem by using cesium binders and rapeseed, uh I feel really uncomfortable saying that,
but rapeseed cultivation as the plant is known for absorbing the cesium-137 isotope.
This is one of the few western world backed up projects in Belarus, as they typically
shy away from anything past Poland.
Otherwise, the land of Belarus is generally flat, as a landlocked nation they have no access to the sea,
however they do have more than enough water internally, with an abundance of rivers and lakes.
About 40% of the land is forests, some of them are captivatingly beautiful like the Biełaviežskaja forest
in the west by Poland, one of the few places where you can find the rare European bison,
Belarus' favourite animal, which is even featured on the emblem and a mascot for various hockey teams.
The most common resource in Belarus is peat, which I just learned,
is some kind of decayed vegetation slab thing that can be used both for fertilizer and fuel.
I don't know, I'm not a peadiatrician.
Belarus is also located in the transitional zone between the continental climates and the maritime climates,
so the weather is sometimes a little bit erratic.
Summers typically range lower than room temperature, around 18 degree Celsius or 65 degrees Fahrenheit,
so you probably won't see any bikinis or speedos, but you know who you will see?
This is probably gonna be the most interesting part of the video,
the Belarusian people are what really make this enigmatic country stick out.
First of all, Belarus has about 9,5 million people, about 84% of whom identifies ethnically Belarusian,
the weird thing though is that, even though over 80% of the people identify ethnically Belarusian,
only a fraction of these people actually speak the Belarusian language.
That's right, Belarus has its own language.
In fact, the Belarusian language is kind of like a mixture between Polish and Russian
and is aboult half derived from the Russian language.
So if a Belarusian speaks Belarusian to a Russian, the Russian will be able to understand basically
the overall gist of what the Belarusian is trying to say,
but will still have some problems with the particular areas.
Even more confusing, many Belarusians actually speak in a Transyanka dialect,
which is like a mixture of Belarusian and Russian.
The president Alexander Lukashenko even speaks in a Transyanka accent sometimes.
Speaking of Lukashenko, since independence from the former Soviet Union in the 90's,
Belarus has only had one president since 1994 - Alexander Lukashenko
and to understand Belarus, you kinda have to know who this guy is.
Many people in Europe will tell you that Lukashenko is Europe's last real dictator
and I mean when you have a guy who wins an election and makes laws that extend his terms
and then the number of terms that you can serve... yeah, the term dictator doesn't really seem
too far-fetched of a title.
Lukashenko is a strange, but kind of funny leader in that, yes, he's kind of been accused
of human rights violations and yes, he's been accused of being slightly racist and slightly anti-western
and he's always speaking in a brash slightly aggressive tone that kind of makes him look angry.
However, you can't deny the fact that he did kind of build up Belarus with a slightly better infrastructure
than it was during the Soviet rule and to this day uneployment has dropped nearly 1%
and they actually prosecute citizens who don't have jobs
and the cities are always clean and the crime rate is incredibly low,
making Belarus one of the safest places in Europe,
and technically because punishments for crimes are incredibly severe.
Granted, the currency exchange rate and GDP is always low too and jobs pay very minimal
and with a state owned structure company privatization is almost completely non-existent.
But hey, that just means souvenirs are dirt cheap, right?
Lukashenko has his opponents and trust me, there have been a lot of anti-Lukashenko protests,
but a lot of the people in Belarus can't deny on the surface at least, that he's kind of a relatable person.
I mean, as an athlete, he absolutely loves hockey and constantly plays it himself in exhibition games,
sometimes with his own sons, which is why in 2014 he was delighted when Minsk
hosted the icey hockey world championships.
Plus, I mean, look at that moustache, just look at it!
Nonetheless, Lukashenko has successfully gotten Belarus in a bit of a heat with the rest of the EU
and the western world due to the way how he runs the country and to this day
relations are kind of non-existent or strained with them.
Well, good luck Belarus, you're off to a great diplomatic start.
As you can probably guess, Belarus is a little eh, when it comes to friends,
I mean, yes, they have their affiliates, but it's a little complicated.
First of all, Belarus' relationships are strange because they get along best with all five
of their border neighbours, however due to sanctions imposed upon them after allegations on Lukashenko,
they are essentially closed off to the EU, which is weird because Poland
and Lithuania and Latvia are in the EU.
This makes things interesting because Poland, Lithuania and Latvia are kind of seen as like
"conduit countries" that act as a bridge between the EU and Belarus.
Every so often the EU will do experiments in which they will lift some of the sanctions to see
if Belarus will engage, typically Poland, Lithuania and Latvia get involved.
Poland and Lithuania have been close friends since day one anyway as Belarus
has been part of the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth for ove 500 years.
There's always been in a sense, a Polish and Lithuanian infuence in Belarus for the longest time.
Afterwards, things switched up and Russia kind of took over in 18th century
and that's when things really started to get Russia-fy.
Even the name Belarus means "white Russia" and that's where the three sisters come in,
Ukraine, Russia and Belarus commonly referred to as The Slavic Sisters.
These 3 countries understand each other better than anyone else in the world.
When it comes to Ukraine, Belarus actually at some points got along with them much better relationally
than they did with Russia and the Ukranian language is actually closer to the Belarusian language than Russian,
making exchanges much more easier for them.
Where things got sour though was Crimea back in 2014.
Russia invaded the Ukranian region of Crimea and amidst all the circumstances,
Belarus actually kinda sided more with Russia than Ukraine, which made Ukraine kind of like:
Ukraine: "Huh, Belarus, how could you?"
So you think Russia is best friends with Belarus and they kind of are,
I mean on all levels of diplomacy and treaties, yes it's kind of true,
however it's more like a love-hate relationship.
For the longest time, Belarus was kind of seen as Russia's little puppy,
everything started out great and in the mid-90's they signed treaties and friendship agreements
and cooperation deals, they did huge business and Lukashenko and Putin would ski together in the mountains.
But then over tima Russia got a little, what Belarusians would desribe as "pushy".
They accused Russia of trying to bribe them numerous times to switch their national advocacies
like in 2000's, they tried to get Belarus to recognize the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions
and after the refusal, Russia banned all dairy products from Belarus,
commonly referred to as "the milk war".
And then there were the gas wars and the custom control threats and to this day
Lukashenko and his legislators have even instituted a complete restructuring of the entire country's operations
to become de-Russiafied - textbooks, educational material, broadcasting, TV,
even street signs are now being switched over to become exclusively published in Belarusian and not Russian.
Children are being taught Belarusian first and Russian second now
and this was done as A) a response to the tiring relations with Russia
and B) as an attempt to research the sense of nationalism in the population of Belarus.
In conclusion, after years of crazy messed-up drama, Belarus is really starting to learn
how to become Belarus again.
One small diplomatically strange step at a time.
Stay tuned, Belgium is coming up next!